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Malaysian-Indonesian film ‘Interchange’ highlights traditional beliefs
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T
he Malaysian-Indonesian co-produced film Interchange attempts to touch on the subject of traditional beliefs in a modern setting.
The film starts with a strange murder case in an underground bar. Man (Shaheizy Sam), a police detective, finds that the victim was killed in a way that echoes a past case: hung from the ceiling, cut open in several parts and dried up until no blood is left in the body. Along with the corpse, the police also find pieces of shattered glass with a mysterious image printed on them.
Searching for clues, Man visits Adam (Iedil Putra), a photographer who switched from forensics to neighbor-stalking photography after being traumatized during his involvement in a previous murder case. Adam recognizes the glass straight away, saying it is actually a photo negative. Although he initially refuses to help, he eventually agrees to look for a studio that can print photos from the glass negative.
Read also: Nicholas Saputra to portray half-human, half-bird creature in upcoming film
As a side story, Adam is attracted to Iva (Prisia Nasution), a girl who has just moved into a neighboring apartment. Strange enough, she seems to be tangled up in the murder case. Little do Adam and Man know that they are dealing with something from an older time, something that involves a mysterious human named Belian (Nicholas Saputra).
Interchange weighs more on the story rather than the thriller aspect of the film. It is created in a layered sequence, with the mysteries surrounding the characters revealed very slowly. The plot may be too slow for some, but the fictional film actually starts with a unique idea. It tries to touch on the topic of how modern people may carelessly interact with the traditional beliefs of a tribe in Borneo. During a press preview, director Dain Iskandar Said stated he chose to create a story about the tribe as he felt that they were rarely represented in film. (kes)
